George McGovern (1922-2012)

By Michael J.W. Stickings and Mustang Bobby

MJWS:

I was born in 1972, after the U.S. presidential election of that year

As my own political views developed, in the '80s and '90s, it took me a long time to come around to George McGovern. I was a conservative back then, mostly, and for too long, even after becoming a Democrat, I bought into the idea of McGovern as the radical peacenik who represented what was wrong with the Democratic Party.

But as I matured, my views shifting leftward and appreciating and identifying with American liberalism (more accurately, progressive liberalism -- I term I use for my views now) more and more, I came to see McGovern as a hero.

Yes, he lost the '72 election, but that was also the year of Watergate, and Nixon's massive victory was hardly the great victory for the Republican Party, and for conservatism, that it seemed initially to be. It was, more than anything, a victory for head-up-the-ass jingoism. Besides, that was a crazy year, and the country was not about to send Nixon packing, not yet -- Watergate and the rest of the dirty tricks and "ratfucking" were hardly necessary.

Perhaps McGovern wasn't the best candidate the Democrats could have picked that year, but he stood firm for progressive values at a time when it seemed only the counter-cultural fringe cared. And while his name may subsequently have been dragged through the mud at the hands of a media establishment increasingly controlled by the Republican noise machine, and by conservatives propagandizing about a supposedly conservative country that rendered McGovern's views extremist as they pulled the country further and further to the right, I would say he was without question a man well ahead of his time.

It is simply wrong to judge him solely, and without context, on the basis of how he did against Nixon in '72. He was a war hero, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross during World War II. And he was a successful legislator, first a congressman (1957-61) and then a senator (1963-81), and he remained active in the Democratic Party and an effective advocate for progressive politics after he left office.

He was right about so much, even if it wasn't so apparent at the time, and history, I believe, has fully vindicated him.

A great liberal voice has gone silent, but his legacy will live on.

And we must continue the struggle for goodness and decency that he so valiantly led.

MB: 

From The New York Times:

George McGovern, the United States senator who won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972 as an opponent of the war in Vietnam and a champion of liberal causes, and who was then trounced by President Richard M. Nixon in the general election, died early Sunday in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was 90.

*****

To the liberal Democratic faithful, Mr. McGovern remained a standard-bearer well into his old age, writing and lecturing even as his name was routinely invoked by conservatives as synonymous with what they considered the failures of liberal politics.

He never retreated from those ideals, however, insisting on a strong, "progressive" federal government to protect the vulnerable and expand economic opportunity while asserting that history would prove him correct in his opposing not only what he called "the tragically mistaken American war in Vietnam" but also the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Forty years ago, I cast my first vote in a presidential election for George McGovern. I've never regretted it, and based on the behavior of the other party since then -- from Watergate to Romnesia -- it was the right thing to do.

The photo of Mr. McGovern was taken by me in August 1972 when he was campaigning near Washingtonville, New York, and I was there with my brother visiting our Aunt Emily. She was a huge supporter of the senator, so we went to see him, and I took my camera.

Godspeed, Senator

By Carl

George McGovern, former Senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee, is dying.

He was the last of the liberal breed, a dyed-in-the-wool group of mostly Democrats who fought hard for the rights of minorities and women (which are actually a majority in this country) and for the poor and hungry. This last was largely motivated by an incident during his tenure in the Air Force, where he saw first hand the devastation war can bring to a people. After World War II, he flew supply missions to northern Italy where he saw people dying of hunger in one of the most fertile regions of the world.

Indeed, President Kennedy saw fit to name McGovern the first Food For Peace director of his administration.

Odd that program no longer gets the kind of attention it used to, eh? Must have been the victim of budget cuts.¹

McGovern ran against Nixon in his re-election bid and was hampered form the outset by two things: his choice for vice president, Senator Tom Eagleton, had been given electroshock therapy for depression, which forced McGovern to replace him with Sargent Shriver, and of course the whole Watergate era, when Nixon decided to not only illegally influence the outcome of the Democratic primaries but to illegally influence the outcome of his re-election.

You youngs can Google it.

Anyway, he came up with some novel and creative proposals in the course of that campaign, like fighting bad economic times by giving everyone in the country a $1,000 tax credit. Oddly, this was badly received by conservatives, who have little problem doling out money now when things are tough.

Indeed, it was Milton Friedman himself who proposed it, and Richard Nixon even included a similar proposal in his Family Assistance Program (yes, that's FAP).

McGovern, in large part, solidified my liberal viewpoint, which was largely formed by the Kennedys. He made it cool to care about people and cool to think that the government could do more, much more, to help those trampled underfoot in a horrific economic machine.

I will miss your voice, Senator. 

¹ The program does still exist and was re-authorized under the 1996 Farm Bill. 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

More like a thud

By Mustang Bobby

Most candidates get some kind of bounce up in the polls after a convention no matter what the eventual outcome is. Walter Mondale did in 1984 and so did George McGovern in 1972 and both of them got walloped in the election the following November. So a bounce is, in the words of the brokerage house disclaimer, not a predictor of future earnings.

Still, it must be disheartening to the Republicans when, after their big blow-out in Tampa, they see that Gallup shows that Mitt Romney got bupkus:

Last week's Republican National Convention had a minimal impact on Americans' self-reported voting intentions, with just about as many saying the convention made them less likely to vote for Mitt Romney as say it made them more likely to vote for him.

One theory for this lackluster response that I see rattling through the tubes is that thanks to Twitter, Facebook, texting, blogging, and the constant feed from the cable channels and YouTube, all of the anticipation and surprise has been taken out of the conventions. Voters who are paying attention have already made up their collective mind about the candidates. Nothing they hear coming out of Tampa or Charlotte is going to move the needle.

That puts the pressure on the Democrats to really come up with something that they think will move the electorate, and I'm sure they're going to try. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)